The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for June, 2006

June 27, 2006

Dennis York does a great job with “Scott McCallum – Visionary”. To resummarize that in song form (with apologies to Kansas for butchering “Portrait (He Knew)”):

He had a thousand ideas, you might have heard his name
He lived alone with his vision
Not raiding fortunes or fame
Never taxed much to speak of
He was off on another plane
The words that he said were a mystery
His fellow Pubbies said he was insane

But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could accept his view, Oh where was he going to

He was in search of an answer
Dig out from the tax hell we are
He was trying to do it a new way
He was bright as a star
But nobody understood him
“His numbers are not the way”
He lost in a bitter election
That’s why we are suffering today

But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could accept his view, Oh where was he going to
And he tried, but because of that his career died
When he left us the people cried,
Oh where was he going to?

He had a different idea
A glimpse of the spending plan
He could see into the future
A true visionary man
“Hold the line on taxes,” he told us
But it died when he went away
If only he could have been with us
No telling what the tax bills might say

But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could accept his view, Oh where was he going to
But he knew, you could tell by the budget he drew
It was totally something new,
Oh where was he going to?

I somehow doubt that this exchange as reported by Power Line has an auto-reply response as part of it:

Reader Henry David copied us on his over-the-top letter of thanks to the New York Times for blowing the terrorist finance tracking system:

Dear Mr. Keller:

I want to thank you personally for breaking the story on the government illegally using the SWIFT system to track money.

This administration is always breaking the law. They all belong behind bars. Just remember, it’s your duty to make sure they’re kicked out of office, in the most humiliating way possible. Republicans are killers of poor people all around the world. Crimes against humanity should not go unpunished.

The lieberals in this country see but one source of evil; conservatives. They are perfectly willing to align themselves with anyone and everyone, and use anyevery tactic necessarypossible in their pursuit of the elimination of us, even if it is self-destructive. From their efforts to keep blacks as a permanent underclass to their use of Hispanics whose ultimate goal is to reappropriate large sections of the US for themselves including the largest concentration of liberals west of the Appalachians, from aligning themselves with Islamokazis who want every person who does not agree with them 110% dead to advocating the breaking of any and every law if it means embarrassing the Bush administration, it is clear that lieberals have taken the approach of, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Be very careful of what you wish for, lieberals. Your “allies” won’t hesitate to stick knives in your backs (literally and figuratively).

June 26, 2006

I’m shocked, SHOCKED to read in today’s Best of the Web that Russ el-Slimeroad (Moonbat-Al Qaeda) has some integrity issues:

That integrity, it should be noted, has its limits. National Review’s >Jim Geraghty catches Feingold in a highly misleading statement. Feingold to Russert:

You know, Tim, today it was announced that a guy named Hassan Dahir Aweys is now the head of the government that has taken over in Mogadishu in Somalia. He is on the State Department’s terrorist list. He is known as an al Qaeda operative, or somebody that is connected with al Qaeda. While we were asleep at the switch, while we were bogged down in Iraq, while we were all focused on Iraq as the be all and end all of our American foreign policy, we are losing the battle to al Qaeda because we’re not paying attention. I asked Ambassador [Henry] Crumpton [the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator] at a hearing the other day, how many people in our federal government are working full time on the problem in Somalia? He said one full-time person.

Geraghty unearthed the transcript of the Feingold-Crumpton exchange, and it turns out Feingold’s account of it is Clintonian–i.e., true, but only literally so:

Feingold: How many people does the State Department have working on Somalia full-time? I just want the full-time figure.

Crumpton: Yes, sir. There is one dedicated Foreign Service officer in Nairobi that looks at Somalia, but there are a multitude of others, not just in the State Department but across the U.S. government, that work the issue.

Well, he is a DemocRAT and a lieberal, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Oh wait, I’m not.

June 22, 2006

OpinionJournal’s Political Diary could not be having their “open house” at a better time. While they still don’t archive them, I will archive this little gem from today’s edition:

Weapons of Mysterious Discovery

Saddam Hussein was lying when he claimed he had destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction. Since the Iraq Survey Group called off its search for WMD in Iraq in early 2005, some 500 artillery shells containing Sarin or mustard gas have been found, according to a newly publicized Pentagon intelligence report. Banned weapons continue to turn up. Why does the the Bush Administration seem allergic to discussing the fact?

House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra, who held a news conference yesterday on the weapons discoveries, said the findings raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. He also noted that it was unfortunate that Americans had been given the impression that the 16-month search by the Iraq Survey Group was the definitive statement on the existence of WMD in Iraq. After continuing to get leads on possible WMD sites, the Defense Department’s National Ground Intelligence Center took up where the ISG left off and discovered the 500 shells in a variety of sites.

The Pentagon is downplaying the weapons discovery because, in the words of a spokesman, they were “not the weapons we were looking for” when the 2003 invasion occurred. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell had mesmerized television audiences when he spoke at the U.N. Security Council in January 2003 detailing stockpiles of anthrax and other toxins he believed Saddam Hussein had.

Still, the discovery should prompt curiosity about what more digging might turn up. To date, there has been an almost pathological reluctance on the part of the U.S. intelligence community to translate and analyze 36,000 boxes of documents captured from Saddam Hussein’s government. “The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq.” He pointed out that during yesterday’s debate on a troop withdrawal resolution, several Senate Democrats said that no WMD had been found in Iraq, a claim, Mr. Santorum said, the declassified document proves is untrue.

The tantalizing clues found in the tiny portion of the National Ground Intelligence Center’s report that has been declassified should serve as a wakeup call for the Bush administration to consider releasing more material from the treasure trove of Saddam documents. The Bush White House’s failure to defend and explain its Iraq policies has proven to be one of the major reasons support for the war has fallen so dramatically.

June 21, 2006

From the Cybercast News Service, because nobody else has the balls to put it up on the Web, though Fox News Channel did carry this –

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq.

Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

According to Santorum, “That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country.”

As I type, I just finished hearing Santorum state this on the Senate floor. Where’s my apology, Russ el-Slimeroad? Where is it, Howie Deanie? How about it, Ketchup Boy? You asshats still want to bleat, “Bush lied!”?

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined Congressman Peter Hoekstra, (R-MI-2), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today to make a major announcement regarding the release of newly declassified information that proves the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq since 2003. The information was released by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and contained an unclassified summary of analysis conducted by the National Ground Intelligence Center. In March, Senator Santorum began advocating for the release of these documents to the American public.

"The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq," said Senator Santorum. "It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq."

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

"¢ Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.

"¢ Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

"¢ The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

"¢ The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

"¢ It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

After a bad couple of weeks in the “R”PW’s attempt to find somebody not named Lorge to take on Nobody’s Senator (hint; the ‘Rats didn’t let a simple thing called “death” stop them from unseating John Ashcroft), culminating with Rick’s, James’s announcements that they won’t run, the right side of the Cheddarsphere stepped up with not one, but two potential candidates. Aaron and Mary have both announced that they’re willing and able to challenge Nobody’s Senator.

Once you have either raised or spent $5,000, you become a candidate under federal law and have a whole host of other requirements, all of which must be filed with the Secretary of the Senate in paper form (the electronic filing requirements with the Federal Elections Commission don’t apply to Senate campaigns):

Next, within 15 days of hitting $5,000 (unlike your taxes, the deadlines are never extended for a weekend or federal holiday), you have to a statement of candidacy (instructions) with the Secretary of the Senate, the FEC, and all the opposing candidates.

Within 10 days of that, you have to have your campaign committee organized and have that information filed with the Secretary of the Senate in the form of the statement of organization (instructions), complete with a designated treasurer.

Your treasurer has to start filing the report of receipts and disbursements (instructions). If you had any reportable activity before 7/1, your first quarterly report will be due at the Secretary of the Senate’s office by 7/15 (it can be postmarked by that date if sent by registered, certified, Express, Priority, or overnight mail). Your next (or first) report will be the pre-primary one, with the books closed 8/23, mailed no later than 8/28 and received no later than 8/31. After that, it’s the 3rd-quarter report (books closed 9/30, due 10/15), the pre-general report (books closed 10/18, postmarked 10/23 and due 10/26) and the year-end report (books closed 12/31, due 1/31, and see the note below if you didn’t make it to the general election). If you do run in the general election, the post-election version is due 12/7 (books closed 11/27); if not, the post-election version is your year-end report. In any case, until your campaign is officially shut down, it will continue to be required to file quarterly reports.

Since Nobody’s Senator is almost certain to trigger the “Millionaire’s Amendment”, you’ll want to take a look at this page from the FEC, which details what happens at what level of Kohl’s personal spending and your expanded fundraising abilities and responsibilities.

June 17, 2006

Okay, enough of the nice “non-partisan” arguments below. There are two interlocking reasons why the leftists over at National Popular Vote and various presstitutes are pushing an extra-Constitutional plan to neuter the Electoral College: it would allow the maximizing of Democratic vote fraud, which in turn would allow the moonbattiest of moonbats to successfully run for President. Time to explain.

There are a number of highly-populous Democratic strongholds that historically been home to massive vote fraud that lie in states that are no longer competitive to one party or the other. With the current state-by-state Electoral College scheme, there is little incentive to try to mine the graveyards or have the usual suspects “vote” 5 times in their state of origin because the party that would get that state’s electoral votes would do so with or without that fraud. However, if a majority of the electoral votes were tied to the candidate that wins the national vote, that fraud would become vital for a ‘Rat victory.

I already touched on the “radicalization” of the Presidential candidates that the abandonment of the state-by-state scheme would enable. That would be exacerbated on the left by a guaranteed number of “votes” via fraud. With those “votes” already in the ballot box, the ‘Rats would feel even less pressure to attempt to “moderate” their candidate (as if Al Gore and John F’em Kerry could be called “moderates”).

The plan outlined by the group National Popular Vote that seeks to assure the winner of the national popular vote for President victory in the Electoral College vote is intriguing. However, it is deficient in three separate ways, one of which is legally-fatal.

The first deficiency is its most-serious one. By relying on a compact between a number of states, this plan is blatantly un-Constitutional. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution reads, "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress,… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State"¦."

Second, it would strip from the campaign any sense of need of a candidate to reach beyond his or her party’s base toward the "undecided" voter. The current state-by-state system, while it does effectively disenfranchise those living in states dominated by one political party, does also force both major-party candidates to battle head-to-head in several hotly-contested "battleground" states, with the attendant moderating effects on both candidates.

Finally, this plan would have the effect of spreading the new phenomenon of post-election challenges nationwide. Imagine the chaos of Florida in 2000 spread out across a dozen states, with each party hunting for the post-election “vote” that would put its candidate over the top.

The 200-word limit is rather stifling when multiple points need to be made.

June 14, 2006

Even though Blogger won’t let him import his old stuff, Peter has taken the full-fledged WordPress plunge and moved his blog to http://texasholdemblogger.wordpress.com. Please update your blogrolls and feed readers accordingly (this means you, Charlie :-)

June 13, 2006

Featured in today’s paint-catcher is this story on how a Menomonee Falls fitness business is using pole-dancing as an “exercise”. Embedded in the online version of the story, with a “see more here” for those who found it in the dead-tree version, are both a slideshow and video of the performances. I wonder if the filters at Casper’s work will now block JSOnline :-)

June 12, 2006

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board takes on a new plan to neuter the Electoral College from an outfit called the National Popular Vote by having a number of states join in a compact to have their electors cast their ballots for whoever wins the national popular vote instead of whoever wins that particular state’s popular vote. Unlike editorial boards across the country, which have unfailingly endorsed this idea, the Journal Sentinel would like to serve the roles of both the Independent Journal and The Kentucky Gazette, which, respectively, published the pro-EC Federalist #68 by Alexander Hamilton/”Publius” and the anti-EC Anti-Federalist #72 by “Republicus”.

Nick points out that the method being pushed by National Popular Vote is both not the method necessary to amend the Constitution and explicitly un-Constitutional by having those states that agree to this plan enter a compact. However, let’s look past those Constitutional deficiencies at the underlying goal; neutering the Electoral College. While I read the relevant Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers (linked above) in order to get the arguments back when the Constitution was in the ratification process, those specific arguments have been rendered moot by the rise of nationwide instant communication, universal adoption by the states of a Presidential popular vote with the party winning that vote choosing the electors and the widespread adoption of anti-“faithless-elector” laws.

Just broken on Mark Belling’s show – a federal jury has convicted Georgia Thompson on 2 federal felonies for steering a travel contract to a company run by Doyle campaign contributors because the officers of that company donated to Doyle.

Nice knowing you, Craps.

Revisions/extensions (10:40 pm 6/12) – Part of the instant local presstitute spin is that “(t)he indictment does not allege a pay-to-play scheme in which the contract was awarded in exchange for the donations.” However, Steve Schultze explodes his own spin by pointing out that the indictment stated that “Thompson steered the contract to Adelman ‘to cause political advantage for her supervisors’ and to bolster her job security.” With the jury returning guilty verdicts on all counts in that indictment, that is now a matter of fact. There are but 2 people above Thompson in her organizational chart that stood to gain a “political advantage” – Marc Marotta (now Doyle’s campaign chair) and Jim Doyle himself.

A question for the Doylies out there; just why did Georgia Thompson feel it necessary to illegally inflate Adelman Travel’s scores to cause a political advantage for her supervisors to keep her job? She didn’t feel it necessary to conduct illegal acts for either political advantage for her supervisors or job security when Scott McCallum was governor.

June 11, 2006

Despite all of Alberto’s convection being well to the east of the center of circulation, and despite it encountering some wicked shear, the National Hurricane Center has declared Lemon Juice, and we have our first named tropical storm of the season. It is anticipated that Alberto will attempt to take advantage of amnesty-lite being pushed by everybody except House Republicans, with supporters claiming that it will drop the rain that American tropical storms refuse to drop for a third of the wind damage.

Revisions/extensions (11:38 pm 6/12) – Alberto survived some serious sheer to damn near become a hurricane earlier today, and he’s dropping tornadoes across Florida like they’re candy. Guess just bringing 4-8 inches of rain to a state that needed it wasn’t exciting enough.

Just in case you missed it, DailyTakes has a slightly-new home. Brian finally got tired of Blogger crapping out at the most-inconvenient times, and has moved off the Blogger reservation. That should also help cure him of the lefty Anons that kept on infesting his old digs.